Interesting, my girlfriend’s friend bought a FP4 because she wanted an eco-friendlyish phone that would last a long time and she says it has been the worst phone of her life with tons of bugs, super slow specifically over 4G, mediocre camera, android auto works badly, etc…
(She uses android, not /e/ or calyx)
I want so hard to believe, but there are just as many reports of it being very bug ridden as positive reviews, so it is difficult, since the negative ones always seem to be detailed and specific.
I would also consider a pixel for graphene, but no SD card and 128GB or 256GB internal memory only is a deal breaker. My SD card + flash in my current phone is already at 245GB
I am honestly willing to have patience and cut some slack to someone that I feel is working with me, whereas I have zero patience for companies who tries to bullshit me all the time.
To put it differently, I prefer to put in some effort to use my tech, then to put in effort to defend myself from my tech. So that’s my bias.
Commenting more in detail.
There have been bugs that have come and gone. Once, two years ago, they screwed up real bad and for a month the phone would randomly reboot a couple times a week. That sucked, until it got fixes. Otherwise it seemed just fine. The occasional issue was no worse than the Huawei I had two phones ago, and people seemed to think those were fine.
The camera was truly awful, but now after an update it’s also OK. Not amazing, not wowing anybody, but just fine. My wife’s Pixel 8a in the meantime keeps screwing up the color balance of the pictures so not all that shines is gold.
When I had the stock rom I used Android Auto on several cars, and all of them have been fine, but it’s only been Volkswagens (and Skoda, Seat etc.) and one Opel, my sample is biased. With /e/OS (which I have since January) I’m actually very happy that Android Auto works at all, so far I only tried in my car.
I have 256GB of flash and that seems plenty. I honestly have no idea how anyone fills that up, but if it ever happens I can indeed add a SD card. Also it’s dual SIM which, for somebody who moved around Europe a bit, is very very handy.
Yeah I need an SD card. I have ~160 GB on photos, videos, and a pretty decent music library synced to my other devices via syncthing. My current system apps (no games, just utility apps and messaging caches) + music streaming downloads (18GB) are 87GB. That is right on the boundary of internal storage if I don’t take any more pictures or add any more local music.
Just android alone is 21 GB, but yeah if someone doesn’t take photos or videos, doesn’t listen to much music, and doesn’t play any phone games, 128 or 256 is probably more than needed.
Oh, I was able to fill 128GB, but with 256GB I still have not managed. I was not even close after ~2 years, and then I had to erase everything when I installed /e/OS.
I do take photos and (rarely) videos, I just don’t keep it all on my phone all the time, I regularly offload them to the home server (Immich).
Same with Series and Music. That stuff lives on the home server (Jellyfin) and can be downloaded to my phone as needed, with transcoding on the fly to a lower quality that’s reasonable on the phone screen (for video) or simply to Opus (for music) to save space. My earbuds are decent but I can’t tell the difference, so that’s good.
Ah yeah, that is the difference. I always keep a local copy of my photos since immich has broken once in the past for me. That is one fantastic piece of software though.
I also use jellyfin, but the security on it is an absolute clusterfuck mess apparently so I don’t expose it to the internet, so I use syncthing for my music.
I should really also set up a backblaze or hetzner off site backup for everything, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I replaced the stock apps with better ones from fdroid and a friend’s car just doesn’t seem to like Android Auto from any phone, so maybe the bugs aren’t with the phone?
I don’t use Android Auto either (because it’s 99.9% Google), but I know my car (Merc A220) just sometimes won’t connect to my Fairphone over bluetooth… and it’s definitely the car. Literally pull over, get out of the car, lock it… unlock it, get back in and bluetooth connects again. Not touched the phone… ffs
I’m obviously one person, so not a good sample, but I’ve had F4 with stock android for about 3 uears and haven’t seen any bugs yet, even with android auto.
As to the camera, I’d agree it’s “fine” but if you ignore the repairability and ethical supply chain angle, you can definitely get a much better camera for the same price range.
Interesting, my girlfriend’s friend bought a FP4 because she wanted an eco-friendlyish phone that would last a long time and she says it has been the worst phone of her life with tons of bugs, super slow specifically over 4G, mediocre camera, android auto works badly, etc…
(She uses android, not /e/ or calyx)
I want so hard to believe, but there are just as many reports of it being very bug ridden as positive reviews, so it is difficult, since the negative ones always seem to be detailed and specific.
I would also consider a pixel for graphene, but no SD card and 128GB or 256GB internal memory only is a deal breaker. My SD card + flash in my current phone is already at 245GB
I am honestly willing to have patience and cut some slack to someone that I feel is working with me, whereas I have zero patience for companies who tries to bullshit me all the time.
To put it differently, I prefer to put in some effort to use my tech, then to put in effort to defend myself from my tech. So that’s my bias.
Commenting more in detail.
There have been bugs that have come and gone. Once, two years ago, they screwed up real bad and for a month the phone would randomly reboot a couple times a week. That sucked, until it got fixes. Otherwise it seemed just fine. The occasional issue was no worse than the Huawei I had two phones ago, and people seemed to think those were fine.
The camera was truly awful, but now after an update it’s also OK. Not amazing, not wowing anybody, but just fine. My wife’s Pixel 8a in the meantime keeps screwing up the color balance of the pictures so not all that shines is gold.
When I had the stock rom I used Android Auto on several cars, and all of them have been fine, but it’s only been Volkswagens (and Skoda, Seat etc.) and one Opel, my sample is biased. With /e/OS (which I have since January) I’m actually very happy that Android Auto works at all, so far I only tried in my car.
I have 256GB of flash and that seems plenty. I honestly have no idea how anyone fills that up, but if it ever happens I can indeed add a SD card. Also it’s dual SIM which, for somebody who moved around Europe a bit, is very very handy.
Yeah I need an SD card. I have ~160 GB on photos, videos, and a pretty decent music library synced to my other devices via syncthing. My current system apps (no games, just utility apps and messaging caches) + music streaming downloads (18GB) are 87GB. That is right on the boundary of internal storage if I don’t take any more pictures or add any more local music.
Just android alone is 21 GB, but yeah if someone doesn’t take photos or videos, doesn’t listen to much music, and doesn’t play any phone games, 128 or 256 is probably more than needed.
Oh, I was able to fill 128GB, but with 256GB I still have not managed. I was not even close after ~2 years, and then I had to erase everything when I installed /e/OS.
I do take photos and (rarely) videos, I just don’t keep it all on my phone all the time, I regularly offload them to the home server (Immich).
Same with Series and Music. That stuff lives on the home server (Jellyfin) and can be downloaded to my phone as needed, with transcoding on the fly to a lower quality that’s reasonable on the phone screen (for video) or simply to Opus (for music) to save space. My earbuds are decent but I can’t tell the difference, so that’s good.
Ah yeah, that is the difference. I always keep a local copy of my photos since immich has broken once in the past for me. That is one fantastic piece of software though.
I also use jellyfin, but the security on it is an absolute clusterfuck mess apparently so I don’t expose it to the internet, so I use syncthing for my music.
I should really also set up a backblaze or hetzner off site backup for everything, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I don’t expose either to the internet. I either vpn to the router, or (for movies and music) do most of the syncing when I’m at home.
I replaced the stock apps with better ones from fdroid and a friend’s car just doesn’t seem to like Android Auto from any phone, so maybe the bugs aren’t with the phone?
I don’t use Android Auto either (because it’s 99.9% Google), but I know my car (Merc A220) just sometimes won’t connect to my Fairphone over bluetooth… and it’s definitely the car. Literally pull over, get out of the car, lock it… unlock it, get back in and bluetooth connects again. Not touched the phone… ffs
Ah that sucks! What kind of issues did she have?
I’m obviously one person, so not a good sample, but I’ve had F4 with stock android for about 3 uears and haven’t seen any bugs yet, even with android auto.
As to the camera, I’d agree it’s “fine” but if you ignore the repairability and ethical supply chain angle, you can definitely get a much better camera for the same price range.